Lee Davy suffers through a sore ass to bring you news of all the weekly poker headlines absolutely dominated by the largest online poker room in the world, PokerStars.

The world’s largest online poker room dominated the news headlines this week. They created four more millionaires, put the World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) to bed, saw their star sportsman involved in a tax evasion scandal, introduced controversial third party software rule changes, and most importantly, were handed the keys to the doors of the New Jersey online gambling kingdom.

PokerStars, and Full Tilt, will soon be appearing in New Jersey homes after the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) finalized their review of parent company Amaya Gaming by handing Lord Baazov a big thumbs up.

The Amaya chief thanked the DGE for their ‘thorough and fair review’ of his business, and we now wait with baited breath to see what the two giants of online poker can accomplish, minus their global liquidity.

In other PokerStars related news, WCOOP came to a close with the award of three million dollar pay checks in the $5,200 Main Event. The final four players cut a deal that saw Nolet20 secure the biggest haul earning $1,223,000, Coenaldinho7 taking $1,100,000 and AlwaysiNduCe taking $1,000,000; Beertjes79 settled for $800,000. That left $200,000 to play for, and the Belgian Coenaldinho7 snaffled it after beating AlwaysiNduCe in heads-up action.

But there was room for more.

A fourth PokerStars player was handed a million dollars, except this one didn’t have to play a single hand of poker. Ukrainian’s “solik1968” was the winner of the Dream Team Collection promotion that featured Neymar Jr., Cristiano Ronaldo and Ronaldo Nazario. “Solik1968” topped an interested group that reached 277,000 players. He was awarded his $1m first prize by winning a series of all-in style heads-up confrontations.

The Dream Team Collection promotion was not without its controversy, after it was revealed that it breached UK gambling advertising laws. 23-year old Neymar Jr. was too young to be featured in UK gambling-related advertising and was replaced at the last minute by Daniel Negreanu. Well, the controversy is still following the young man, after his mug was spread across worldwide media hubs, after a Brazilian Judge froze personal assets worth $47.7m, over allegations of tax evasion.

Oh…I nearly forgot. Neymar Jr. also made news headlines because he shaved his head.

Some online grinders might be feeling like lopping off their heads, after PokerStars also unveiled plans to change its policy on the use of third party software, and other tools, used to gain an advantage when playing on their client.

PokerStars Sit & Go and Tournament Manager Baard Dahl announced the complicated array of changes on a 2+2 thread called “3rd Party Software on PokerStars: Proposed Rule Changes.” I’ve taken a peek, but feel I am unduly qualified to understand all of the big words being used, and couldn’t help but wonder why on earth they just didn’t create a wholesale 100% ban on these things?

PokerStars are the latest online poker room to follow in the rather belated footsteps of Jonas Odman, who rolled out the Recreational Poker Model some eons ago, much to the derision of said online poker rooms.

And finally, is former PokerStars head honcho Isai Scheinberg the owner of PokerNews, and does he still have some connection with the Red Spade? Those are the whispers that have been falling into the ears of CalvinAyre towers this week. So far the news has been met with nothing but tumbleweed, but that’s hardly surprising if it’s actually the truth.

You are forgiven for believing that PokerStars is the only online poker room in the universe (it certainly feels like that sometimes), but there are other alternatives. One of them is partypoker and it wasn’t a particularly good week for the former world heavyweight champion of online poker rooms, after they were forced to postpone their premier online tournament series Pokerfest. The reason behind the grinding halt was a new software update that increased the likelihood that online gremlins would have been feasting at the wrong time.

The other big heavyweight in the online poker world is 888Poker, and this week they announced plans to open in Denmark. It’s great news for the Danish online poker market, made even more cheery when it was decreed that Danish players would share liquidity with the rest of their international player pool.

Poker Central revealed their inaugural broadcasting line-up for their Oct 1 launch, and left us all open mouthed when we saw nothing but a series of old programs that can be found on channels such as YouTube. But that’s a good thing according to Head of Programming, Dan Russell, who told PokerNews that he was excited to show this old content, because it had never before been aired in US TV. I guess they don’t have YouTube in the US?

I think I will stick to Twitch thank you very much.

Whilst I don’t have much time for a 24/7 TV network, featuring a lot of old poker shows, I do have time for a non-profit that are doing everything they can do make the world a better place.

Raising for Effective Giving (REG) released their Q2 figures, and they now have close to 200 members, and they raised $158,088 for effective charities in that timeframe. Twitch sensation Jason Somerville also joined the REG nation, which is great news.

On the live tournament front Sergio Castelluccio won the first-ever World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) event to be held on Italian soil, Tom West won the Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) Thunder Valley Main Event after finishing third the last time it hit town, and both Aaron Mermelstein and David Paredes picked up World Poker Tour (WPT) Main Event titles (Mermelstein picking up title No.2) after victories in Maryland and Borgata respectively.

He may not have won a live tournament this week, but we end our news round up with a shout out to Byron Kaverman. The US star halted Jason Mercier’s 10-week stay as the Global Poker Index (GPI) World Number One, the first time that Kaverman has been in the loftiest spot in poker.

Time Lades & Gentlemen please.

Someone has just called the clock.

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The Ayre Media Group is based in Antigua in the West Indies with teams in London, Manila and Vancouver covering the global gambling industry.Along with ensuring fair coverage of the gambling industry we highlight the great work of the Calvin Ayre Foundation.